Tuesdays with Dorie: Bill’s Big Carrot Cake

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting…I probably don’t need to say much more than that.

But of course I will. Carrot cake is a favorite here, but not made nearly enough, so I was glad when Amanda of slow like honey gave me the excuse I needed to get grating, by choosing Bill’s Big Carrot Cake as this week’s TWD recipe. This one is *big* and loaded with carrots (of course), coconut, walnuts and dried cherries.

As per usual, I set out to do a half recipe of this cake, only to realize that I don’t have three 6-inch cake pans. Crud. I thought about making two larger layers and possibly splitting them into four, or using my 6-inch springform as the third pan, but I decided that this amount would probably fit perfectly into my quarter-sized sheet pan (my favorite and most useful sheet pan). So instead of a round cake, I baked a sheet cake that I cut into three strips (the baking time was reduced, of course). Once layered up with icing, it made a rectangular cake that I could cut into thin slices or chubby squares.

Armed with some tips from a great post by Joy, I made a gorgeous cream cheese frosting. I flavored mine with vanilla bean paste and orange zest, rather than the lemon juice that Dorie uses. This cake is tall, and moist and delicious…a winner of a carrot cake. And since I just did a half recipe, I made the whole thing, cake and frosting, easily by hand.

Yours looks fantastic! Big and beautiful indeed. I won’t lie, the main reason why I chose this cake was because of the frosting. Who could resist piles and piles of sweet whipped cream cheese frosting?!

Your pictures look fabulous. I christened my new 6″ cake pans with this recipe. Like you, I only have two, so I made a third of the recipe. It worked pretty well. Like you said, it’s pretty easy to mix a small amount of batter by hand.